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RARE WOODS 


T'he Charm of T^heir 



Murphy Varnish Company 

Franklin Murphy, jr., President 

Newark Chicago 

Dougall Varnish Company, Limited, Montreal, Canadian Associate 




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■RARE'WOODS' 


S UCH masterpieces as the noble choir of St. Paul’s or 
the splendid library of Trinity College, Cambridge, 
do much to quicken one’s appreciation of wood as a 
means of artistic expression. Not only the architectural 
genius of Wren and the technique of Grinling Gibbons 
impress the visitor; but also their mastery of their me¬ 
dium, their ability to create with wood whatever effect 
the imagination conceived. 

In the range of woods available in the early eight¬ 
eenth century there was little inspiration. There were 
only oak and walnut, supplemented by mahogany, after 
Gibbons had discovered its rare beauty and rescued it 
from a practical if poetic existence as a shipbuilding 
material. But to-day the variety of strikingly different 
woods at our disposal is wide enough to kindle the im¬ 
agination of the artist. 

No part of the world is remote and inaccessible 
enough to escape our drafts upon its forest riches. From 
impenetrable Ceylon, from the depths of Bornean forests, 
from the savage Andaman islands, from the unexplored 
west coast of Africa, from Australia, come successful 


(Copyright, 1917, Murphy Varniah Company, Newark) 



SEP 19 1917 








































rivals of Cuban and Mexican mahogany and woods until 
lately unknown to the trade of the world. From the 
South American forests we get woods still hardly known 
by name. From the Philippines and from the Hawaiian 
islands come other wonderfully rich woods. 

Every one of these new woods has a matchless qual¬ 
ity of its own and new methods of finishing, based on a 
better knowledge of the structure of the various kinds of 
woods, are revealing the beauty of woods never before 
considered for decorative purposes and finding new 
charm in some that have served with honor for centuries. 

Constant association with wood cultivates an in¬ 
terest in whatever is responsible for its individuality— 
the size and arrangement of the pores, the color contrast 
of the annual rings and particularly the nature of the pith 
rays or medullary rays—the layers of cells radiating 
from the pith toward the bark. Almost invisible to the 
naked eye in some woods, but very conspicuous in 
others, these rays give to quartered oak and sycamore 
their beautiful, silvery, flaky appearance. 

One of the greatest fascinations about wood is the 
wilful perversity with which Nature gives or withholds 
its surpassing traits of beauty. Our delight in the most 
conspicuous and ornamental figure in wood is often 
heightened by its rarity, by the fact that it is never 
exactly duplicated, since it is due to accidental irregu¬ 
larities of growth. 

These rich gifts of Nature, pure treasure trove, often 














































occur in burls, abnormal growths or excrescences common 
to all trees but valuable only in a few. Those of great¬ 
est value are usually found at the root collar, just below 
the surface of the ground; those occurring in the upper 
part of the trunk are likely to be injured by insects or 
decay. Trees producing burls are usually dwarfed 
and stunted and grow in open, exposed places rather 
than in dense woods. Gnarly old trees of little use for 
lumber may reward some fortunate speculator with 
veneers worth thousands of dollars. The graceful “wavy 
grain” pattern, so sought for in mahogany, is another of 
these delightful irregularities. It occurs near the junction 
of large limbs or roots where growth produces a folding 
of the bark which moulds the soft tissue of the new 
wood to correspond with its own corrugations. 

Though there is now a nearly unending variety of 
woods to choose from, certain kinds have served so long 
and so well as to have established for themselves an 
almost sentimental regard. 

First among these well tried woods is oak, rich in 
historic associations, reaching back to the times when 
“the monarch of the forest” played an important part 
in religious and civil ceremonies, and when oak chaplets 
were the reward for civic merit. The British passion 
for the tree, perhaps traceable to a Druid ancestry, has 
made the word a synonym for strength and courage as 

in David Garrick’s lines; 

“Hearts of oak are our ships, 

Hearts of oak are our men’* 














































“Walls of oak” was the half affectionate term for the 
British navy before the days of steel ships. “Solid oak” 
has a meaning as definite as “solid silver” and the very 
terms “oak paneling” and “oak wainscoting” evoke 
delightful associations of mellow old English interiors. 

Real English oak is still coming to this country, cut 
from the estates of great English landowners. For 
strength, for beauty, and for the superb finish it takes, 
what rivals it? Is there anything more wholesome for 
daily company than its pale brown heartwood strewn 
with darker spots and enriched by the pattern of the 
annual rings defined by pores? And what a definite 
character is given it by its broad, prominent, irregular 
pith rays, often an inch or more wide, many inches long 
and almost as hard as horn! These rays are brought to 
plainest view by quarter-sawing, which, about 1865, 
opened a new era for oak. 

And beside oak stands mahogany with its sugges¬ 
tions of grace and elegance. Mahogany, like oak, has 
gathered associations of its own. Though it was noticed 
by a carpenter on Sir Walter Raleigh’s ship in 1595, for 
its great hardness and durability, and was used for years 
as a shipbuilding material especially in the Spanish 
navy, its value as a cabinet wood was long overlooked. 

The decorative value of mahogany is due to a com¬ 
bination of figure, richness and warmth of color, dura¬ 
bility and working qualities. The figure and grain are 
not only beautiful in themselves but are particularly 






































adapted to receiving stains and finishing processes. 
Staining in imitation of the darkening effect of age is 
easily accomplished. 

No wood has been so generously favored by nature 
with those irregularities of growth, producing special 
marks of beauty. Pieces cut from a crotch show graceful 
“curls” sometimes thirty-six inches long. When this 
figure breaks out in flame-like tufts it is called “feather”. 
The large symmetrical patterns—secured by the reverse 
matching of such figured pieces—are incomparably rich. 

Where, as often happens, the fibres of mahogany 
are arranged spirally instead of straight and then are 
cut lengthwise, as in a board, a splendid figure with 
light and dark stripes is exposed. This effect, which 
is called “roe”, is due, not to any real difference in 
color, but to the way the light falls upon the pores, just 
as the long pile of a rug looks glossy or dark according 
to the point of view of the observer. 

No other wood varies so in quality as mahogany. 
No two trees are alike; yet we tell at a glance 
whether a specimen is hard, heavy, dark and richly 
figured enough to be the slow-growing product of poor 
southern Florida limestone soil or is from the moister, 
richer but still favorable soil of Cuba or Honduras. 

The renewed interest in walnut calls attention to 
its wide distribution. In the trade, the timber from 
southern Russia, Turkey and Persia, its original habitat, 
is termed Circassian Walnut and is most highly prized. 










































while that grown in western Europe is classified as 
French, Italian or English according to its general re¬ 
semblance to the type of wood generally produced by 
these countries, variations in soil causing considerable 
modifications. 

The beautiful markings, the fine texture and smooth 
even grain that give walnut such pronounced individual 
character are at their best in wood grown in poor, up¬ 
land, hilly soils. The finest comes from misshapen 
dwarfed trees more than one hundred years old, rarely 
with a clear length of more than twelve feet, and the 
most beautifully veined part is found in roots and burls, 
especially in trees near the Black Sea. Such growths 
are so twisted and interwoven as to produce curious 
and irregular features, giving the wood a value beyond 
mahogany for matched veneering. 

When more abundant, Circassian walnut was used 
for coach-making, carpentry, ordinary furniture and for 
wooden shoes. During the wars of the eighteenth cen¬ 
tury, it was used so extensively for gun-stocks that even 
at that early date the shortage became serious and in 
1720 France prohibited its exportation. The wood of 
12,000 trees was required for this purpose alone early 
in the nineteenth century. In consequence, large for¬ 
ests were planted throughout England, France and Ger” 
many. One, started in 1818 near Boulogne, France, 
contained about 30,000 trees. 

The prevalent idea that American black walnut is 






















































now extinct is far from true. Though used for the beau¬ 
tiful furniture of the William and Mary period, its pos¬ 
sibilities as yet lie undeveloped. Recently its chief 
use has been for gun-stocks for the armies in Europe. 

Among woods that have been highly prized since 
time immemorial, ebony and teak—“the oak of India” 
—are notable. Of ebony, the best comes from trees 
native to southern India and Ceylon, having black, 
charred-looking bark beneath which the wood is per¬ 
fectly white except the fine-textured, intensely black 
heartwood which alone is used, and this chiefly for inlay. 
For veneers another Indian variety is employed— 
Coromandel with its close grain, great hardness, and 
fine hazel color, mottled and striped with black. 

Besides these time-honored woods, there are many 
others to choose from, equally beautiful, if not so well 
known. The so-called East India mahogany or ver¬ 
milion wood, white mahogany, tiger-wood or Congo 
walnut, Peruvian walnut, Colima oak—scarce just now 
on account of Mexican disturbances—koa wood called 
Hawaiian mahogany, kamagon or marblewood from the 
Philippines, various kinds of satin-wood, as well as a 
wide range of native woods, are practicable, available 
and susceptible to beautiful finishing. 

Though at times there has been a tendency to over¬ 
look the artistic possibilities of wood, today the response 
to the opportunity it offers is keen and the skill and 
feeling displayed in using it is highly developed. 














































Murphy Varnishes for Rare Woods 

The object of issuing this brochure is not alone to 
illustrate some of the beautiful woods with which the 
architect creates his fine effects, however interesting 
they may be, but also to call attention to Murphy 
Varnishes as the most suitable for beautifying and pre¬ 
serving his work—for preserving it indefinitely. 

This is important. The inherent beauty of most 
woods is revealed only by the finishing process; the 
charm of other woods is intensified by it. The mellow 
tones of age are forced for immediate effect by staining; 
but the varnish gives depth of tone. It also preserves 
the beauty of the wood for all time. Not only the 
beauty of the wood, but the life of the wood—its very 
structure—is preserved. Fine varnish seals it against 
the absorption of moisture, which would cause swelling 
and warping, and it guards against shrinkage. But it 
must be fine varnish. 

In these days there are many “largest varnish manu¬ 
facturers in the world”, all of whom claim to make “the 
best”. Also the number is legion of small concerns 
without facilities or experience, who think knowledge 
of the melting of gum is all that is needed. The archi¬ 
tect is, indeed, beset with uncertainty. 

It seems desirable to say that a concern may be 
large and not make the “best”. That is frequently 
true. Quantity does not always imply quality. In the 






















































varnish business a concern must be large enough to have 
the proper facilities for selecting and purchasing mate¬ 
rials, making, testing, storing, ripening, etc. 

But moro important than these, there must be the 
desire to excel and that desire must permeate the entire 
establishment. It cannot unless the head is dominated 
by it. It cannot succeed unless all hands have pride in 
it. The finest, for the sake of the finest, must be the 
motive. There are such concerns—not many—and, 
when the architect finds one, he should specify the 
particular varnish he needs made by that concern. He 
should not say that varnish “or equal”, for in the ideals 
we are thinking of there is no such thing as “equal”. 
All this may seem very trite, but there is occasionally 
“the ideal” in every business. 

If a concern, through fifty years of effort, establishes 
a reputation for quality, and if the management remains 
unbroken, that reputation is a safe guide to fine varnish. 
Therefore, it is to the interest of the architect that he 
know his varnish-maker and stick to him. 


Murphy Varnish Company 


John O Powers Company 
New York 


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